


Cookies & Sin

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Baker!Bucky, F/F, M/M, Meet-Cute, human disaster Clint, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 16:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16814536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Bucky Barnes and his sisters own a bakery that stays open late.One night an incredibly attractive guy comes in and there's flirting and disaster.That's it. That's the fic.





	Cookies & Sin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OriginalCeenote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/gifts).



Two A.M. was Bucky’s favorite time of day.

The city was almost asleep, as close to asleep as New York - as Brooklyn - could ever get. The vibrating, pulsing vitality of the millions of people around him slowed to a crawl, with only the occasional wail of a siren or the blare of a horn or the bark of a dog or irate shout to break the peaceful silence of the early morning.

Well, those sounds and the noise of their customers.

_ Cookies and Sin _ , the bakery that Bucky and sisters Becca, Alice and Liz, had opened three years ago, stayed open from eight A.M. until 3 A.M. every day of the week, except on Tuesdays when they were closed.

The bakery had been Becca’s idea, had started off as a dream she spun while sitting at Bucky’s bedside while he recovered from getting his arm blown off by an IED in Iraq while serving in the Army. Most days, Bucky had been too high on pain meds, too low and drowning in depression and rage and hatred, to really pay attention to her. But some days, some days he managed to surface enough to listen to her, managed to mumble out opinions or questions - to tell her the name  _ Cookiesmith _ was awful - and it was those days when she didn’t cry, those days when she laughed and touched him and called him a dumbass, and it felt like maybe the world hadn’t shattered into a million jagged pieces that he would never be able to cobble together again.

Even so, even after a year of PT - before and after being fitted with his hi-tech Stark prosthetic - and just as much mandated therapy, Bucky still wasn’t whole, was still working on the ‘cobbling together a human out of his broken remains’, and when they finally opened the bakery, his sisters had relegated him to the back. 

Which was fine by Bucky. Baking? He could do that. Had always liked it. His best memories from childhood were the ones at his mother’s side, baking with her, painting cookies for his baby sisters, baking a cake for the boy down the street he had fallen hopelessly in love with the day they met and Bucky had had to save him from a bunch of bullies.

Becca was the brains behind it all, had been from the start - had been, really, in all of the Barnes family adventures as soon as she was born - and she, Alice and Liz manned the front of the store between the three of them. Bucky came in every day to bake, arriving around midnight and staying until he had all of the cookies baked for the next day, sometimes staying later if there were special orders or catering events.

Two A.M., with just an hour left before the store closed, was Bucky’s favorite time. It was long enough into his nightly baking that he could step out of the kitchen and razz whichever sister happened to be manning the till that night, and it meant that the customers were either already cleared out - usually during the week - or the flood of their usual insomniacs were seated and happily munching away on cookies in the early morning quiet.

Bucky didn’t, as a general rule, interact with the customers.

Things were better, now, five years after coming home wrapped in bandages and only able to remember his own name half the time. But they weren’t  _ great _ , and, as Becca so often reminded Bucky, he didn’t have a  _ customer service _ personality.

Maybe before… Before being blown apart, before watching most of his unit die, before going off to the Army in the first place. But definitely not now. 

Before, before Bucky Barnes had been outgoing, had been Prom King, had been senior class president of his high school even though he ran on a platform of  _ don’t vote for me, I’m just going this for extra-credit _ , had been captain of the baseball team and the French club, and he’d never been without friends or dates unless he wanted to be alone, which had been rare.

Before, Bucky Barnes had been young and smug and immortal. Following his best friend, the first boy he loved, into the Army had seemed logical - after all, who the hell  _ else _ was going to watch Steve Rogers’ troublemaking ass?

But now, after, Bucky Barnes avoided large crowds, avoided the friends who had known him back when his future was bright and distant, avoided all of the things that reminded him of the life he had been too dumb to appreciate until it was brutally yanked away from him.

Now, Bucky didn’t even know if he  _ could _ still flirt his way into or out of trouble, because he couldn’t even remember the last time he had felt an inkling of interest in anyone.

So, Bucky didn’t deal with customers. Bucky baked, and Bucky helped his sisters clean up at the end of the night, and he took a break from baking long enough to walk them home in the pre-dawn hours, and then he went back to the shop alone to finish the baking, and then he went to the gym near his apartment, working out as the sun rose, before anyone else could be bothered to pull themselves out of bed, and then he retreated home. 

He slept fitfully - sometimes for a few hours in the morning, sometimes for a few hours before he went in at midnight to start baking. He was enrolled in online courses, getting a Bachelor’s degree in Public Justice through the State University College at Oswego entirely online. He didn’t know if he would ever do anything with it, but it ate up the hours in the day, and even though it probably - definitely - wasn’t what his therapist had in mind when she suggested he attempt to  _ engage _ more, it did force him to interact with other humans. Electronically. So that was something.

And his life, while not… not what he would have, in a million years, pictured for himself, was something he could handle, most days. If just barely.

Until Liz decided to go to Northwestern for grad school.

He was happy for her - they all were, his mother, Becca and Alice - because Liz had always been the baby of the family and the one that they had all always pinned their hopes on, had all always known would go the farthest and do the most. 

So that was great. 

Except for the part where they still, in mid-September, hadn’t found a full-time replacement for her, and as a result, Becca and Alice were working way too much, with the assistance of a few part-time employees, and everyone was feeling stretched thin.

And, of course, the end of summer and the hints of fall brought with it the same gift it did every year: bronchitis. For Becca.

She had powered through it for days, refusing to go to the doctor at all until their mother had shown up at  _ Cookies _ mid-afternoon and forcibly dragged her away from the register, according to Alice. And even now that she was finally on antibiotics, she still wasn’t getting enough rest, was still coughing like her lungs were waging all-out war on her, and looked pale and listless. 

So, at two A.M. on Wednesday night, after Bucky had pulled out half of the next day’s cookies from the oven to cool before he started to prep the rest, he came out from the kitchen to check on her.

Wednesday nights were always the slowest. He wasn’t really sure why, but Thursdays were, aside from the weekend, their busiest days. Something about college students partying, Liz had suggested. Mondays were decently busy, Bucky’s personal theory being that Mondays sucked and sometimes the only thing that convinced you you could even wake up for Tuesday was a late-night run for cookies. But Wednesdays… Wednesdays were usually the slowest, with only maybe a dozen customers coming in after midnight.

Right now, there were only two customers in the store - a young couple, both girls sporting rainbow hair, combat boots and an eclectic layering of clothing that Bucky supposed passed for stylish in Brooklyn these days. They had a cookie flight between them - Becca’s brainchild, a dozen cookies selected at random and served with a glass of milk (organic whole or fat-free, or almond milk, rice milk or soy milk) - and playing footsie.

They were cute, but more importantly, they seemed low maintenance.

Which was good, because Becca was leaning heavily against one of the display cases and staring into space with red-rimmed, bruised-looking eyes and an unfocused gaze.

“Go home,” Bucky told her.

It took her a moment to focus on him, on his words, and then she frowned.

“What? Why? We’re still open.”

“You’re barely functioning. Go home.”

“But - we’re still open,” Becca repeated, as if the world would somehow end if  _ Cookies & Sin _ closed at 2:15 instead of 3:00 one night.

Bucky took in her frown, the way she swayed a little on her feet, and then glanced at the two girls again.

“Yeah, well, I’ll watch the front and close up at three. You go home and sleep.”

“But…” she trailed off, still frowning, clearly having a hard time focusing on what he was saying. “People, Buck. There’s people.”

“Yes. I noticed. I can handle it. Them.”

“You sure?”

“Becca. I’m calling you a Lyft. Go home.”

She blinked at him, and he was alarmed to see that her eyes were wet. Her lips wobbled, and she hugged him.

“Thank you,” she breathed into his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Bucky. I’m just- I’m just  _ so _ tired and everything hurts and-”

“It’s okay,” Bucky assured her, and awkwardly patted her back with his right hand.

Before, Bucky had been good at hugs. Had, according to Becca, been able to turn an entire day around just by giving her a smile and a tight hug.

Now, he was afraid to wrap both arms around her, unsure of how to hold anyone with an arm that wasn’t his, with a body that still felt like it was half-buried in the desert.

She eventually pulled away and wiped at her eyes while he ordered a Lyft for her, and then he patiently stood beside her while she walked him through how to use the register, how to close it out at the end of the night, how to lock the doors, how to do all of the things he already  _ knew _ how to do.

Still, he let her talk it through, and then walked her out to the curb when her neon orange Lyft pulled up, and held up a hand while it drove away.

Walking back into the shop, he was relieved that the two girls were still entirely wrapped up in each other, the outside world unimportant as they shared the cookies and stared into each other’s eyes.

He set about consolidating the remaining cookies from the day, moving all of them towards the left side of their tags in neat rows so that when he put out the fresh batches, they wouldn’t get mixed together. 

He pulled tags and cookies that they weren’t going to sell the next day - every day, they tried to rotate recipes, keeping about two dozen cookies permanently available while Bucky tried his hand at new recipes or old favorites and added another dozen or so of those daily to the mix.

It was nice, to keep things to a routine, but a routine that allowed for some experimentation. It meant there was never too much pressure on him, but it also kept him from going through the motions purely on autopilot.

It-

The door to the store opened, the annoying as all hell cow bell rigged above the door ringing loudly in the still night as a man stepped inside.

The man looked up apprehensively, but then his lips twitched into a grin when he saw what the source of the sound was. He tugged at one ear, in what Bucky had to assume was a nervous gesture, and then looked away from the bell and towards the cookie counter. And Bucky.

Which gave Bucky a rather clear view of one of the most attractive men he had seen… ever.

He had dark, messy blond hair that might be more brown than blond in certain lights, tan skin and broad features, with a strong jaw, straight nose, full lips and pale blue eyes that were surprisingly vivid. The rest of him was equally appealing - he was well-built, if the purple t-shirt clinging to his shoulders, pecs and biceps was anything to go on, and even his low-slung sweatpants hinted at strong thighs and long, long legs.

Bucky had to swallow hard and force himself to meet the man’s gaze.

“Hi,” he said, unprompted, and completely unnecessarily and unhelpfully.

The man grinned, his smile brilliant and blinding.

“Hey,” he replied.

And they just stood there, staring at each other, Bucky cataloguing the small scar on the man’s forehead, just above his right eyebrow. He also had a tattoo, on his neck, just behind his left ear. It looked like - an arrow, a two-inch long arrow aimed down the length of his neck. There was just a hint of scruff along his jawline, maybe two days’ worth of growth? And he had freckles, a faint constellation of them across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks.

Bucky realized that just standing there, staring at the gorgeous man, was  _ not _ his job.

“Cookies?”

He winced, wanted to turn around and walk back into the kitchen and never, ever come back out.

But the man’s grin only grew.

“Oh man, yes,  _ please _ ,” he said emphatically, looking at Bucky as though he had just offered him a new car. 

And then there was more staring.

If any of his sisters could see him now- 

_ Fuck _ .

Security cameras.

Security cameras with  _ audio, _ because Bucky, unlike his sisters, had a healthy sense of paranoia -  _ not _ an overly-developed one as Becca claimed - and had insisted they install them in the store.

“Do you know what kind of cookies you want?” Bucky asked, fumbling through the question. 

Why the fuck had Becca wasted time talking him through the register when  _ clearly _ she should have been working with him on how to fucking speak to humans.

“Ah… no, actually. I’ve never been here. I… I don’t want to be  _ that _ guy and ask ‘what’s good’, so, uh… can I ask which one your favorite is?”

The man’s smile had slipped a little on one side, falling into a comfortable-looking smirk that was warm and inviting and made Bucky wish he had met this man a lifetime ago, when he was whole, when he knew how to flirt and  _ wanted _ to flirt.

“I don’t have a favorite,” Bucky answered, telling the truth. He didn’t  _ love _ the lemon shortbread - those were Becca’s favorites - and he wasn’t entirely happy with his experimental caramel-potato chip cookies, but he didn’t have a favorite.

“Oh.” The man’s smirk slipped, and he scratched at the side of his face.

Bucky noticed a bandaid wrapped around the man’s index finger, and another on his forearm. A forearm that was remarkably free of hair and- and definitely  _ not _ free of tattoos.

Something large and round was on his right bicep, peeking out from under the shirt sleeve, and Bucky felt his fingers physically itch to pull that sleeve up and find out what the tattoo was.

Cameras, Bucky reminded himself when they just stood there staring at each other again.

“What’s your favorite flavor?” Bucky asked.

The man shrugged one shoulder, lifting the hem of his purple shirt enough for Bucky to see the peak of a bright white underwear waistband above the sweatpants.

His mouth went dry, and he had the insane desire to kneel down in front of the man and lick along that line.

_ Christ _ . 

Bucky hadn’t felt like this about anyone in -  _ years _ . He had frankly forgotten what it felt like to even be  _ horny _ , he had been on pain meds and then antidepressants for so long.

“I like peanut butter?” the man finally offered, lips curving into the slightest, shyest of smiles.

Bucky could work with that. He walked down the row of display cases, and on the other side, the man walked with him.

“Tahini cookies,” Bucky pointed to rounds with sprinkles and sesame seeds, “classic peanut butter,” he pointed to plain, golden rounds with ridges, “bacon, banana and peanut butter cookies,” he pointed to the fluffier, fuller cookies with visible bits of bacon poking out of the cooked dough, “and... peanut butter and merlot cookies,” he pointed to dark brown, rectangular cookies on the end of a row.

“Oh. Uh. Wow. That’s… a lot of different stuff. For just peanut butter.” The guy offered up another smile. “I, uh, I think I’d better go with the classic peanut butter? I don’t even… I don’t even know what Tahini is? I don’t really like banana, and I hate wine, so…”

Bucky nodded, trying not to care one way or another that this stranger didn’t want to get adventurous with his cookie selections. After all,  _ what the hell did it matter? _

“How many?” he asked.

“Uh… three? Four? Four. Oh,” he added as Bucky started to pull out the cookies and arrange them on a small plate. “I’d also love to get a cup of coffee.”

Bucky arched an eyebrow.

“Decaf?”

The man laughed, as if Bucky’s suggestion had shocked him.

“God, no. All the caf. But, uh, also some room for milk.”

Bucky nodded, passed the plate over and prepared a mug of coffee, leaving enough room for the man to add milk to it, and then placed it on the counter beside the register.

The man joined him, nimble fingers flipping open his wallet.

“Twelve even,” Bucky said after typing in the order.

The man passed over a ten and a five, and Bucky wasn’t at  _ all _ wishful that he had paid with a credit card.

“Keep the change,” the man said with a wink, and then he picked up his coffee and his plate of cookies and walked over to the small side table that held carafes of milk and creamer along with packs of sugar and napkins and cutlery.

Bucky watched the man pour milk into his cup, because there was nothing else to watch and not because he wanted to know how the man prepared his coffee. 

The man stirred it with his finger, even though it was  _ hot _ , and then shoved his finger into his mouth to lick it clean, and Bucky is both grateful that he can only see the man in profile and also remorseful. 

And then the man turned, saw that Bucky was looking at him, and tripped over himself.

The coffee and cookies went flying, the man’s knees cracking upon impact with the floor, and Bucky was over the counter and reaching towards the man’s head at almost the same time it hit the floor.

“Ow,” the man sighed.

“Oh my god,” one of the girls cried as they stood and approached, “are you okay?”

The man held up one hand, waving them off, while Bucky was still awkwardly kneeling on the floor beside him, hands hovering over his head.

“‘M fine. Just another day in the life.”

The girls looked at each other, then at Bucky.

Because, right. Bucky is sort of, definitely, in charge of this place.

“I’ve got him,” he assured the girls, who gingerly sat back down at their table, eyes still on Bucky and the man.

The man groaned and rolled over onto his back.

There was blood on his lip, and Bucky guessed he probably bit it when he fell.

“Ow,” the man said again. His eyes slowly open and he looked directly at Bucky. “Hey.”

“Hi. Are you okay?”

Becca was going to murder him. She’d left him in charge of the store for literally  _ ten minutes _ and a customer had almost died.

He wondered if the guy would try to sue.

Wondered if the guy had any grounds for it?

_ Distracted by the murder stare of the owner _ .

“Uh, my pride’s pretty fucked up, but otherwise…” The man’s tongue darted out to lick at his bloodied lips. “Otherwise, I’m totally awesome.”

The man sat up slowly, Bucky’s hands inches away and following his movements, wishing he could just bridge the distance between them and  _ touch _ the man, but also terrified to do so.

“Ow,” he said again as he rubbed at his knees and then gingerly got to his feet.

It left Bucky kneeling on the floor, in pretty much the exact position he had earlier imagined himself in, and when he looked up, the man was looking down at him. There was a wash of red on the man’s cheeks, probably blood rushing back to his head from getting up too quickly, even though he had tried to take his time.

Bucky swallowed hard and got to his feet as well. 

There was coffee and broken porcelain and scattered remnants of cookie everywhere.

“Let me get you some fresh coffee and cookies before I clean this up,” Bucky said, because he had to say something, and because it felt like the right thing to do.

But the man’s face twisted into a scowl.

“Aw, no, no. I- I’ll buy new ones, yeah. And-”

“No, you don’t have to buy new ones,” Bucky assured him, a little offended at the idea. Even if it hadn’t been his fault that the man had tripped, who would seriously charge him for another cup of coffee and four cookies after an accident?

“I- I’ll help you clean up this mess,” the man offered.

“No.” Bucky was definitely offended by  _ that _ offer. He also knew that, no matter what, his sisters would watch the recording of these proceedings and probably tease him about this for the next eternity. If he dared let a customer help him clean up a mess, he would  _ never _ hear the end of it. They would probably tell their mother.

“But-”

“Go sit over there,” Bucky pointed to a table far from the mess, and also, incidentally, in his direct line of sight.

The man raised his eyebrows at Bucky’s tone, and Bucky flushed.

It had been his  _ tone _ , his ‘drill sergeant tone’ as Becca called it, even though Bucky had never been a drill sergeant. But he had been a sergeant, had been in charge of a fire team, and later a squad, and- and he had gotten used to telling the men around him what to do, right up until it got all of them killed.

“If you want to,” Bucky hastily tacked on, and the man grinned at him, offered up a cheeky two-finger mock salute, and walked over to sit where Bucky had instructed.

He got another plate of cookies, another cup of coffee, and walked over to the side table and prepared the coffee exactly as he had watched the man do it - except that he used a stirrer, instead of his  _ finger _ \- and then he put both the mug and the plate down on the man’s table.

“I, thanks,” the man offered up, cheeks still flushed dark.

Bucky nodded, and then walked over to the small utility closet and pulled out a broom and dustpan to begin the cleanup.

He swept up what he could, glad that the girls had gone back to staring at each other, but keenly aware of the fact that the man was watching his every move.

Bucky was self-conscious at the best of times, knowing that a shiny metal arm wasn’t  _ normal _ and drew attention the same way tattooing his forehead with  _ weirdo _ would. He also knew that his general demeanor was, to put it as kindly as Alice had, not inviting. His resting bitch face had always been strong, had only grown more pronounced after his time in the Army, and his glares had been perfected in staring matches with Becca as a child, against childhood bullies out to punch Steve Rogers, and now had the weight of Bucky’s having seen too much added to it.

So having the man, the very attractive man, watch Bucky as he swept and mopped the floor had him aware of his every move in a way that he couldn’t decide if he liked or not. The weight of the other man’s gaze did something to him, for him, that made Bucky conscious of his body in an entirely different way than his normal efforts to simply appear either unthreatening or univiting, depending on the situation.

It wasn’t  _ pleasant _ , but it wasn’t… entirely unpleasant either.

By the time Bucky finished, he felt almost as alive and nervy as he did after stretching and warming-up for a workout.

It was difficult to go back behind the counter, but he forced himself to, putting distance between them.

The girls finished their flight and milk a few minutes later, as the minute hand on the clock on the wall above Bucky crept closer to the number six, and left the store holding hands.

Bucky moved to clean up after them, and then started to wipe down the rest of the tables, working his way gradually closer to the man.

“I, uh, I’m sorry,” the man said when Bucky was wiping down the table next to his.

Bucky looked over at him with a frown.

“For what?”

“The mess - breaking your stuff. Wasting food. Wasting  _ coffee _ .”

Bucky felt his lips twitch into a slight, sympathetic smile at the emphasis on coffee, as if it was sacred.

“It’s okay,” he assured the man anyway. “If you’re okay?”

The man nodded, and then absently rubbed at his bottom lip.

“Yeah. I’m fine. I just… I’m so fucking clumsy. Can’t even  _ walk _ right when a hot guy is looking at me, you know?”

It was obvious, the moment the words were out of the man’s mouth, that he hadn’t really meant to say them.

His face turned bright red, and he stared at Bucky in open-mouthed horror.

_ There was a hot guy in here before? _

It was on the tip of his tongue, the words pressing against his lips, the desire to tease and flirt so strong Bucky had to suck in a breath to force it down.

Because he couldn’t flirt with this man. This beautiful, clumsy civilian who had stubble on his chin and freckles on his nose, and deserved so much more than Bucky could ever even  _ begin _ to bring to the table and-

And they were just words.

Just a few words, spoken at two-thirty in the morning to a complete stranger. 

Where was the harm?

It wasn’t a proposal of marriage.

Bucky blinked, and he wondered if too much time had passed, wondered if-

“You should have pointed him out,” he finally said.

The man blinked, mouth slowly closing as his lips formed a frown.

“Huh?”

“The hot guy. You should have pointed him out to me.”

The man stared at him.

“I- You- Wha- That’s not fair. You can’t be hot  _ and _ sassy.”

Bucky shrugged, feeling his lips curve into an unfamiliar smile at the man’s indignation.

“Evidence suggests I  _ can _ ,” he said, the words coming easy, a heat in his belly that felt at once familiar and so, so unique that he was unsettled by it.

The man was still blushing, though it wasn’t as bright as when he had first spoken, and it looked like he was slowly getting his wits back.

“Next, you’re gonna say that  _ you _ baked these damn delicious cookies.”

Bucky couldn’t help it, couldn’t even begin to overthink it. 

He leaned his hip against the table he had been cleaning and crossed his arms.

“Not only did I bake the damn delicious cookies, I poured water into the coffee machine  _ and _ poured the coffee grounds into the filter.”

“Oh, you  _ are _ a god among men,” the man said, pretending to be in awe of Bucky.

Even if his words were tinged with sarcasm, there was genuine appreciation in his gaze. It made the heat in Bucky’s belly flicker and spread.

He arched an eyebrow.

“Didn’t you  _ see _ the way I used that mop earlier?” he taunted.

That earned a genuine laugh from the man, warm and full and rich enough that Bucky had to smirk at the accomplishment.

The man nodded.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re good. Amazing, even,” the man said. He propped his head in the palm of one hand and kept looking at Bucky while he ate his last cookie. “These are really delicious.”

“I’m glad you like them,” Bucky said, the meaningless words sincere.

The man grinned, wiped his hand off on his shirt, and then held it out to Bucky.

Bucky stared at it for a minute, and the man waggled his fingers.

“I’m Clint,” the man said.

Bucky stepped forward and slid the palm of his left hand against Clint’s warm palm.

“Bucky.”

“Bucky?”

“James, but no one except for my ma calls me that.”

Clint didn’t seem to mind that the part of Bucky he was holding was metal. 

“Nice to meet you, Bucky,” Clint said with another warm smirk.

“You too, Clint.”

-o-

Thursday, Alice had the closing shift, and when Bucky came out front at two, the store was busy with their usual crowd of college-aged kids indulging in cookies and milk after whatever parties they had crawled back from.

Working with Alice was one of their part-timers, a kid named Peter, who looked all of twelve but assured them that he was seventeen and a freshman at Columbia majoring in Biophysics, which to Bucky sounded like kind of a fake major. 

All the same, Peter was a good kid, a quick learner, and had even asked Bucky to teach him how to bake someday. Since he was the  _ only _ part-time help they had ever had who even bothered to talk to Bucky, that put him fairly high on Bucky’s list of people he could tolerate.

Seeing how good he was out front, with the customers, listening to Alice whenever she told him something, taking the initiative to clean or restock without prompting, only bumped him up higher on Bucky’s list.

Alice was too busy for Bucky to really talk to her, so instead he loitered behind the counter and looked over the display case to see which cookies they were getting low on.

The basil-strawberry tarts he had made yesterday looked like big hits, with only a handful left. He decided to make more for the next day.

The lemon tea cookies were also almost out, as were the red velvet ones.

“Bucky.”

He looked up at the sound of his name, and found himself staring into Clint’s pale blue eyes across the counter.

Clint was smiling at him, and it felt only natural to smile back.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Clint leaned against the display case in front of him. 

They stared at each other.

Clint was in another t-shirt and sweatpants combination tonight - though the shirt was black, it was just as tight as the one he had worn last night, and Bucky let himself appreciate Clint’s arms in it before looking back at his face again.

Clint’s smile had turned into a smirk, but since Clint hadn’t fallen down this time, Bucky didn’t care that he’d been caught staring.

“Oh, hey, sorry! Didn’t see you there!”

It was Peter, walking over, the smile on his face directed at Clint.

Clint looked between Bucky and Peter.

“Uh, here I am?” Clint lifted his shoulders awkwardly.

“Anything in particular you’re craving tonight?” Peter asked Clint.

Clint lifted one eyebrow, mouth working, and silently turned to look at Bucky.

Bucky felt his face heat as Clint’s gaze lingered.

“Oh. Uh… right.” Peter edged away. “I’ll just, let Bucky help you.”

_ Smart kid _ , Bucky thought.

“Smart kid,” Clint said.

Bucky snorted a laugh, and then sucked his lower lip between his teeth as he considered Clint.

Clint’s eyes shifted down to his mouth, and Bucky was honestly relieved that that old move still worked.

“So,  _ were _ you craving something?” Bucky asked.

“Uh, how do you feel about me ordering off the menu?” Clint asked after giving a cursory sweep of the display cases.

“Depends on what you want. If it’s not on display, I’d probably have to make it and deliver it later.”

Clint’s eyebrows shot up.

“Oh,  _ really _ ?”

Bucky nodded and found himself smirking at Clint’s grin.

Clint licked his lips.

“Any chance you’d be interested in, like, breakfast?”

“You want me to come over to your apartment and make breakfast?”

“I mean… yeah, that’d be great, but I was thinking more like… us going to a diner and you doing your whole hot, flirting thing of yours, and me doing that stupidly staring at you and trying not to do something stupid thing I’m working on.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad,” Bucky allowed.

“Oh. Damn. Here I was going for awful and tortuous.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, but he leaned against the counter from his side, putting himself only a few inches away from Clint. Close enough that he was tempted to start counting his freckles.

“What time did you have in mind?” he asked Clint.

“When do you get off?” Clint asked.

Bucky arched one eyebrow and had to smirk. It was easy, probably too easy, but he thought Clint probably expected it anyway.

“I think that’s a better question for our second date than our first.”

Clint grinned. Yeah, he’d been expecting it.

“But I finish up here at five.”

“Awesome. If I can figure out a way to mainline coffee, I’ll totally still be awake for that.”

Bucky rolled his eyes.

“What time did you have in mind?”

“For getting you off?” Clint smirked. “I had a few thoughts on that, actually. But, as far as me waking up… Eleven? Twelve? Some kind of  _ reasonable _ hour?”

“You think getting up at noon is a reasonable hour?”

“You think getting off - of  _ work _ \- at five A.M. is reasonable?” Clint shot back. “Pretty sure that goes against the Geneva Conventions, my friend.”

Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Rosie’s Grill, down the street, does brunch every day of the week,” he suggested.

“And their coffee is so damn good,” Clint hummed in approval. “Noon?”

“Yeah. Noon.”

Clint grinned again.

“Great. It’s a date. But, uh, until then, any chance you’ve figured out a favorite cookie for me to try?”

-o-

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for prompting me with this @OriginalCeenote!!! Definitely felt good to sit down and write a whole thing and have it DONE. 
> 
> As always, all the thanks to my beta reader, Ro, and to CB for beta-reading and hand holding. You are the literal best and so much more than I deserve.


End file.
